"Lucky Girl!"

So, last night we flew down to Luxor. We're staying at the Sheraton Luxor Resort. The hotel is bright orange. The teachers said it was white the last time they were here, and I don't know whose artistic genius produced bright orange, but somehow I don't think it was the best idea they had all year.

This morning we went to the Valley of the Kings. It was really neat, because I think only one of the tombs we went in today was one I'd see before. My favorite was Thutmosis III. We had to climb up a metal stairway up this big cliff face and then the tomb went way down deep into the mountain. The heat, or lack of oxygen, or something made my thighs cramp up really bad, though. Only inside the tomb and only on the way down, but it hurt. It was weird. When we were down in the very deepest chamber (well, at least the deepest one they let you go in, I get the feeling a lot of these tombs aren't 100% accessible, even though I didn't see any other entrances to other chambers or anything...), the lights went out and it was pitch black for like, 30 seconds. I fully expected to see a dead body when the lights came back on, it was totally Tomb Raider. It was awesome. The other sweet thing about the Valley of the Kings is that they've actually discovered another tomb since I was last there! How cool is that??? KV 63 was discovered in 2006 and they're still excavating it. We couldn't go into that one, but we saw the construction sight and everything. It was totally sweet.

We stopped by the temple of Hatchepsut and Pit Tomb 33 (which is where the papyri of Abraham are thought to have been found) for like, 5 minutes and the bus just stopped at a distance and our guide talked for a bit. Mama Pharaoh didn't come with us to Luxor, I totally miss her. Our guide is cool, but not nearly as cool as Mama. Anyway, we didn't get out of the bus to at least take decent pictures from a distance or anything. I was a little annoyed, but I did get to do that last time so it wasn't the end of the world. I think I would rather have gone to Hatchepsut's temple than Ramses III's, which is the one we did go to. I don't think I've been there before, but I guess it looks a lot like Karnak Temple (which is where we're going tomorrow) because I kept having the weirdest deja vu there. Because the first and last sections weren't familiar, but as we were going through the middle I started thinking, Am I sure I haven't been here before? Honestly, I'm still not 100% positive. I'll have to ask my dad. Also, by the time we got there I had a bit of a sun headache (not like dehydration- believe me, I've been doing a great job of keeping hydrated on this trip- more like my eye muscles were tired of squinting) and I wasn't really feeling it. But I got some good pictures of the carvings and stuff. We also stopped off at the Colossus of Memnon for five minutes- they did let us get out to take pictures of that one- also something I saw before.

This afternoon we went on a camel safari! It was awesome! They took us through a village on the West side of the Nile- we took a felucca ride to get there. The little boy that was like, the felucca first mate was pretty cute, he taught us a felucca song, it was pretty sweet. But ya, so we got on the camels and the kid leading mine was totally not interested in being at the back of the line. He kept like, making my camel run and going around all the other camels. I mean, I wasn't complaining or anything, it was just funny. But then at the end he tried it again and the camel was having none of it, lol. Like, not even close, he was done. And I got some really neat shots of people in the village. All my best pictures from today are basically of people. There were all kinds of adorable children. And these two little boys were tag-teaming it on one girl's camel and they were so cute. I took about 5 pictures of them. And I got a great picture of our security guard on his horse, showing off his gun. He had flashed it for us earlier on the felucca, but he wouldn't do it again so we could all get pictures of it, so I was actually really surprised when he obliged, and I was like, Crap I gotta take this picture before he puts it away! Coz I wasn't expecting it, lol.

And tonight we went shopping! We went over to the bazaar in like a big group, but we kinda split off to do our own thing and I ended up walking around with just two of the guys. The whole way down the street all the merchants kept saying stuff like, "One woman, two man. Lucky girl!" and like, whistling at us. It was hilarious. I loved it, lol. I bought a light blue pashmina scarf. It had embroideries of like, flowers and butterflies in shiny (but still the same color) thread. I'm pretty sure the butterflies are what sold me. :) And I'm also fairly confident that I'm about the only girl from the JC who didn't buy like, 15 of these scarves, too, lol. And then I bought this gorgeous ring. It's pretty much my favorite piece of jewelry I've ever owned. It's silver with a white amethyst. It's a round cut, but the setting is square, so you get all the brilliance of a round, but it looks like a princess with the way it's all shaped. Plus it's set at an angle, so it kind of has almost the feel of a marquise, too, which is perfect for my finger. And the band is tiny. It's so delicate, I love it.

Well, we get to sleep in til 8 tomorrow. How sad is it that we're all excited to *sleep in* til 8? But we've been up at 6 or earlier the last 4 days, so 8 is practically noon. :)